Courtesy vehicle after accident.

smith79

Evening all, I'll try to keep this as simple as possible. 
On Tuesday am my wife was caught up in a road traffic accident where an hgv crossed over the central reservation of a dual carriageway into her path. The hgv overturned and my wife was faced with taking evasive action and going off road onto the embankment, or head on into the hgv. 
She chose the former. Another vehicle  which my wife was overtaking at the time ended up colliding with her, albeit a very light impact yet damage was sustained to both vehicles. 
Two other vehicles sustained damage plus the hgv. 
Nobody was seriously injured thankfully. 

So, the police attending the incident advised my wife to use their recovery for her vehicle as it would be quicker than waiting for her insurance, explained that we would receive a bill but not worry as the insurance will sort it. 
This was done and the vehicle was collected around 2pm on the Tuesday. 
Meanwhile she's had a text message regarding courtesy vehicle and told that due to shortages there 'could be a delay of 24-48 hours'. Shortly afterwards she gets a phonecall from the courtesy car co. who advise that 'this is too complicated for us to deal with so we're referring back to insurance co'. 
Come Friday afternoon we've still heard nothing about when we can expect a courtesy vehicle, so a phonecall to our insurance (Tesco) to be told we won't get a courtesy vehicle until the accident repair centre have inspected the vehicle, and this was in the ts and cs we agreed to upon taking out the policy. We then learn that the vehicle is not yet with the repair centre but still at the yard of the recovery company some 72 hours after it was recovered.the accident repair centre don't work weekends or Bank Holidays so at the very earliest it will be midday Tuesday (a full 7 days and some hours after the incident) before the vehicle arrives with the repairer. 
I protest in the strongest way I can whilst remaining reasonable that this simply isn't good enough, and remind Tesco that this wasn't my wife's fault, and their ts and cs shouldn't come into it at all. The customer service rep advises that the hgvs insurers haven't accepted liability so this is why there's a hold up. 

Can anyone give me advise on how to complain about this situation or where we legally stand in that due, to no fault of her own, my wife's car is damaged and we now have no family vehicle. I have a work's van but that's no good for a family, also my wife needs a vehicle to get to her place of work... (we live in a small village with next door to useless public transport)

We just keep getting the same story from tesco that we won't get a courtesy vehicle until repairer has assessed ours. The last time we suffered a non fault accident, the third parties' insurers were on the phone to me that day to advise Enterprise car rentals would be in touch to deliver me a vehicle. 

Hopefully this makes sense. 

sheramber

They will be waiting to see if the car is a write of as you do not get a courtesy car if it is.

If the only  damage was caused by the other vehicle hitting her then the claim would be against their insurance. They, in turn would claim against the HGV insurance.

But there may be damage caused by her going off road  onto the embankment which would be claimed from the  HGV 
Insurance

Hence the courtesy car company saying it is complicated. 

smith79

Thanks for your reply... it makes sense, however, I thought that the total loss = no courtesy car only applied when claiming through your own insurance?, to me this is as black and white as can be that my wife is in no way at fault here. I guess I'm just p***ed that recovery has had the vehicle for 5 days (charging by the day for storage) and nobody seems to care that this leaves us without adequate transport. 🤬

Altior

Do you have legal cover? My instinct would be to arrange your own hire car and claim it back as uninsured loss, as long as you are confident one of the other parties will accept liability eventually. At least discuss it with the legal team as it appears you are not covered by your own insurance (according to them) but can take reasonable steps to get back on the road. 

sheramber

smith79 said:

Thanks for your reply... it makes sense, however, I thought that the total loss = no courtesy car only applied when claiming through your own insurance?, to me this is as black and white as can be that my wife is in no way at fault here. I guess I'm just p***ed that recovery has had the vehicle for 5 days (charging by the day for storage) and nobody seems to care that this leaves us without adequate transport. 🤬

At present your claim is with her own insurance company until liability is established.

DullGreyGuy

smith79 said:

Thanks for your reply... it makes sense, however, I thought that the total loss = no courtesy car only applied when claiming through your own insurance?, to me this is as black and white as can be that my wife is in no way at fault here. I guess I'm just p***ed that recovery has had the vehicle for 5 days (charging by the day for storage) and nobody seems to care that this leaves us without adequate transport. 🤬

Courtesy car = car provided by the repairing garage at the garages own expense (its effectively included in the labour charge). As such no repair = no car. Its also not guaranteed so if the garage has run out of cars then you either have to wait to start the repairs or do without a car.

Upgraded/Guaranteed/various other  marketing names (courtesy) car = a hire car provided under the terms of your policy, normally an optional extra, sometimes multiple levels that dictate size of vehicle or maximum duration

Credit Hire = like for like hire car provided on credit by a third party where they attempt to recover their outlay from the third party insurer. As such only available in cases of straight forward liability

What you originally discussed was a credit hire car which understandably they said no to as there will be a question on if the evasive manovers were reasonable or not etc.

Sounds like you didnt buy the Upgraded Courtesy Car optoin as Tesco's calls it and hence you are where you are now.


What your policy covers doesnt change with the fault for the accident, its the same. No courtesy car = no courtesy car. What does change is after the claim is settled they can try and get their money back from the third party insurer. If you have legal expenses insurance then it will assist you in attempting to recover any out of pocket expenses or other uninsured losses from the third party insurer. If you dont buy this then you can equally do this yourself.

So no policy cover for a vehicle and too complex for credit hire your choices remain to either weight it out, but there is no guarantee of a car even after the vehicle has been recovered if its a write off or the garage simply doesnt have any. The other option is to hire a car yourself and then claim that from the third party insurer after (via LE cover if you have it). In theory you could contact the third party Insurer and ask them for a replacement vehicle but with it being a commercial vehicle its fairly unlikely that they'd be willing to do so at this point.